Digitalizing Sustainability Assessment in Agriculture: The SUSTIN-OLIVA Indicator-Based Application for Tunisian Olive Farming Systems Under Agroecological Transition

With the shift in Tunisian olive growing toward more intensive models, significant sustainability concerns have emerged. Aware of the need for reliable and operational tools to support agricultural policies under climate and socioeconomic pressures, we address a digitalized methodological framework for measuring and assessing the sustainability of olive farming systems that are undergoing an agroecological transition. The main contribution lies in the development of the SUSTIN-OLIVA digital indicator-based application, designed as a decision-support tool to enhance the accessibility, scalability, and operationalization of sustainability assessment within a holistic approach that integrates environmental, economic, and socio-territorial indicators tailored to Tunisian olive agroecosystems. The methodology was tested on 61 Tunisian olive farms in two agroecological zones undergoing transition, using face-to-face surveys conducted between April and May 2026 with a structured questionnaire. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied as an exploratory approach to examine the relationships, contribution patterns, and internal structure of the proposed sustainability indicators. The results indicated that, among the 28 indicators considered, 23 made substantial contributions to the main patterns of variation identified by the PCA in the studied context. These findings demonstrate the feasibility and operational applicability of the SUSTIN-OLIVA framework across heterogeneous olive farms and provide insights into differences in sustainability performance and indicator interactions. The framework also enables the identification of under-addressed sustainability dimensions, supporting more targeted interventions and context-specific decision-making. Overall, this work advances digitalized sustainability assessment by linking a holistic indicator framework with an operational digital decision-support tool, thereby supporting adaptive governance in the Mediterranean olive sector.